It’s not like Tina isn’t gorgeous, that’s beside the point. She’s barely legal, not even 20 yet. But she’s the daughter of one of the men that I respect above any other on this planet.
I already went down that road with Toni. The only reason that Mr. Richton didn’t blow a gasket was that he took a liking to me and had always thought of me as a son, so when Toni and I started hanging out, it didn’t faze him all that much.
But I didn’t get it twisted; I kept the sexual adventures that Toni and I had a secret. So secret, in fact that even the FBI wouldn’t know the details of what happen. If I had the proper connections, they wouldn’t be able to find out shit, either.
At least, not without special interrogation methods.
Simply put, Tina was like a little sister in my eyes, regardless of the fact that her hips and curves have developed into something that Shakira meant when she sang about hips not lying, or something like that.
Now, she’d put a proposal out, laid down a gauntlet that any man would probably kill for:
seed money, no questions asked, in exchange for one night of passion.
All because I trusted my “little sister” with a dream that no one else on the planet knew about.
Except Toni.
But Toni never used that information against me, not like Tina was doing to me right now.
God, I hated myself for giving her the power over me like this.
Something’s gotta change, and soon, or I may do something I may regret, I thought to myself as I got up from my bed, with Cori on my mind and what would’ve happened if she hadn’t been called to the studio.
I needed to get out of the house before something else happens.
“Since when did you have time to come see your boy in the studio?”
Brian was right, I usually didn’t have time to make pop visits, but I need to holla at my boy about a few things, and I needed the time away from the house.
Omar was on my mind.
He’d been avoiding me since the night we were at the club.
“I had two things I needed to get at you about. First, are you jumping on producer credits for the girls’ first album?”I asked to butter him up before asking the second question. “Second, have you seen Omar? He’s not returning my calls.”
“Damn, Tracie got to you, too, D?” Brian snapped. He gave me this look like I’d just cut his heart out, then he switched up again like nothing had happened. “Oh well, it’s not like I had feelings for the bitch.”
I put my hands up in protest, completely confused as to what just happened to him just then. “Hold up, B, I don’t know where the fuck your mind was, but you know I don’t roll like that. How you gonna believe that I fucked Tracie just because I asked about you producing a few tracks?”
Brian’s eyes got wide like he’d just realized what came out of his mouth. “Derrick, damn, my bad, that shouldn’t have come out like that, for real. That damn woman’s got me trippin’.”
“Yeah, she’s got you twisted alright.” I looked at him, trying to figure out what the hell got into him. It wasn’t like Brian to let some female rule him like this.
“Bro, if you knew some of the shit that freak could do, you’d be a little twisted, too.” Brian shot back. “I’m surprised that Corina hadn’t already fucked you senseless to try and grease the wheels a little. You know, push the date up to get this deal done?”
When I didn’t immediately answer to that comment, Brian looked disgusted. “Damn, is this shit gonna be Stacy all over again?”
“Low blow, Brian.”
“Naw, it’s gravy, man. You’re getting soft and sweet on her, and that’s cool, you’re built like that.” he kept at it, stoking my anger even more. “I’m not ever turning in my player’s membership, unless I get old or some shit like that.”
I wanted to slap him silly for that comment about comparing Stacy to Cori, but I slowed that shit down because all that would do was confirm what his mind suspected.
Brian was still on his rant, oblivious to anything I might have said. “I know Tracie’s got gold in her eyes, and if you’re honest with yourself, Cori and the rest of them can’t be too far from the mark. Just keep her around until she wears out her welcome. They always do. Besides, she already got what she wanted anyway and—“
“Alright, B, that’s enough.” I finally said, shutting him down quickly. “You got one more time to—“
“I’m just sayin’, D—“
“Feel me where I’m at right now,” I raged, shutting him down quick. “One, according to Cori, Mr. Parker cut his trip short after Toni got the tape of the showcase to him and pushed the meeting up to Wednesday morning. Two, I’ll drop you where you stand if you ever mention Stacy in the same breath as Cori again. Are we clear?”
“Alright, nigga, chill, no need to get your ass in a sling about shit.” Brian switched gears, finally remembering the other question I asked. “Anyway, Omar’s been off the map for a while, man.”
“What do you mean by that? We just hung out a couple of weeks ago.” I countered, a little irritated that the conversation was taking this tone.
Damn, I was trying to take my mind off things, not weigh more shit down on it.
Brian shook his head as if I was on the outside of a really bad inside joke. “Omar’s been salty about some shit, D, especially when we side-stepped him about the party at Toni’s house. When I called to check on him the other day, he was talking stupid, said we chose pussy over him.”
Here we go, Omar being his melodramatic self again. The weed got his ass paranoid again.
Still, the way Brian was looking at me, something wasn’t adding up, and I needed to know what the fuck he was holding back.
“What aren’t you telling me, Brian? You know O, he usually comes off his high and it’s squashed.” I told Brian, as if he didn’t already know.
Brian rubbed his hands over his face, and his body language gave me the impression that he really didn’t want to be the messenger on this one. “I know he’s your boy and all, D, and I wish it was just the weed talking, but he’s graduated.”
“Spill it, B.”
“I caught him doing lines at the club with the female he was fucking around with after you left with that woman you were with that night.”
What the fuck?!?!?!
I speed-dialed his cell phone and it immediately went to voicemail.
I was getting a bad feeling already.
I dialed the house phone and got a busy signal, which meant the phone was off the hook.
I didn’t panic, but it was coming close to that.
“I would have told you sooner, but O swore it was his first time doing the shit, and he didn’t want you giving him a lecture about it.” Brian stated flatly.
Lecture? I’ll give him more than a damn lecture.
“I’m going over there now to check on him. God knows what the fuck else he could be doing.” I stared Brian down before I left the studio. “You better hope that he’s still in one piece, bruh, or you and I are gonna have words.”
I was already on my way to my truck before Brian could stop me.
His last words of warning were to let sleeping dogs lie.
Fuck that, this was my boy. We’ve been tight for ten years, since middle school.
No way was I going to just let him be.
On the way up I-285 to Vinings, my mind flashed back to the last few months after I broke up with Stacy. Omar was there, in my face the whole time, trying to tell me that I needed to get over it, not letting me sink deeper.
Brian couldn’t understand that, he was on the west coast producing another album when I was going through that shit. But then again, Brian didn’t grow up with us; he and I met in college and have been hanging for a few years, but Brian hasn’t been around as long as Omar.
If he’s in trouble, I can’t let him sink. That’s not how we roll.
Thoughts kept flowing, trying to figure out where things could have possibly gone wrong, so ba
d that he had to resort to cocaine.
While were playing basketball in high school, I sort of turned a blind eye to the marijuana usage, even though I knew it would fuck up his prospects with colleges that were recruiting him if he got caught.
I should have told his parents then, but the way that his mother was, I didn’t want him kicked off the team because I was more concerned with winning a state title.
I even tried to get the girls that he was with to sweet talk him into not doing it so much, and for a while it worked.
But when we signed at different schools, even though we never lost touch, calling after games and shit like that, I guess in hindsight I couldn’t have known if he’d graduated to the harder stuff or not.
I loved him like a brother, but he was a grown ass man now, and I was not his babysitter, Brian made sure to make that point.
Still, I felt a twinge of guilt that maybe I could have steered him away from the shit if I really wanted to, especially when he got kicked out of school over the weed use.
I should have taken the clue then.
Toni was done with him after an incident happened last year with one of her girlfriends – her name was Samantha – who dated him.
It felt like that night happened just last week.
That night, we all found out he was going to be a proud father.
Except… the proud father wasn’t so proud.
He never flinched when she told him about the baby, he just reached into his wallet and threw a half a grand in her face and demanded that she handle her business or he would handle it for her by beating the baby out of her.
It’s one thing to say dumb shit in private.
It’s another thing entirely to say it in a room full of witnesses.
Omar stressed her out so much that she ended up in the hospital, with the doctors telling us that Samantha had a miscarriage.
That night almost ended things between Toni and me.
She wanted him gone from all of our lives.
I told her I couldn’t do it. Even in the wake of the incident that was clearly his fault, I couldn’t do it.
Yeah, loyal to a fault, I know. But I was brought up to believe that you don’t leave your friends when they’re at their lowest.
You couldn’t get any lower than what he did that night.
That was then… this was now.
I made up my mind that once I got to the spot that it would be a make or break conversation between him and me.
Either check in to rehab… or he was on his own.
I finally got to Omar’s condo in Vinings, and I saw his car in the driveway. I walked up to the door and noticed that it was slightly ajar, which tripped my senses immediately.
Naw, this ain’t happening, I thought to myself as I quickly ran back to my truck to get my piece. I’d be damned if I was gonna get caught up, and I was worried about my boy, too.
I debated on keeping the safety on as I slipped inside the door, not knowing what to expect. Once I got into the living room, though, my anxiety level kicked up a notch.
The room looked like a disaster area, as if someone had tossed the place looking for something… or someone. The flat screen was gone, leaving a gaping hole in the wall in its place.
“Omar! It’s D, man, you in here?!?!” I shouted out, knowing I might give myself away.
The next thing I heard was a pop.
The next thing I felt was a burning sensation and an intense pain shooting through my left arm.
“You shouldn’t have come here, D.” I heard Omar’s voice calmly utter.
I slowly turned around, and Omar was facing me, gun pointed at my head, eyes wild and looking right through me.
“Omar, what the fuck, man?!?!” I tried to take the fear out of my voice, but considering I’d already had my arm pierced by a bullet with his first shot, I was failing miserably at that task. “What are you doing man?”
“What the fuck do you think I’m doing, brother?” Omar sneered. “I’m about to take care of two problems today.”
“Omar, you ain’t gotta do this, man,” I tried to reason with him, but I’d seen that look in his eyes before, and it was just a matter of just how far gone he really was. “Just put the gun down and tell me what the problem is.”
“You’re my fucking problem, D!!!” Omar snapped again, cocking the hammer back on his gun. “No matter where I turn, what I do, your fucking shadow keeps popping up!”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?!?!” I yelled out at him. “I haven’t done anything to you! I’ve been your boy for over ten years!!!”
“Were we ever friends, D?” Omar’s eyes told me he wasn’t himself, but I still couldn’t believe he had the nerve to ask me that. “In high school, when we were at separate colleges doing our thing, were we ever that tight?”
“You’re not thinking straight, bruh,” I tried to stay reasonable, but that was slowly slipping away. “I have never betrayed you, no matter how bad it got. I damn near lost my closest friend over having your back.”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about.” Omar narrowed his eyes. “You and Brian chose pussy over me, like I ain’t shit or something.”
“Is this shit about the party the other night, Omar? You knew where that party was being held at, kid.”
“You could have made Toni—“
“What the fuck are you talking about? That wasn’t gonna happen.”
“See, pussy over me. Hell, even the bitches that approached me first still ended up coming after you. Just like high school.”
I blinked at that statement.
He’s making shit up now.
“Look, Omar, just put the gun down, and let’s talk this out. I love you like a brother, don’t that matter to you?” I told him, holding back tears. My uncle was a cop, and he used to warn me about people who were coked out of their minds.
I swear I never thought I would see it happen. Not to one of mine.
I watched him look like he was struggling with something, but there was no way I was going to figure out what was in his head. His eyes moved all over the place, finding me every few seconds, like he was waiting for me to make a move.
I kept my gun drawn; I couldn’t let him get the drop on me, regardless of whether he was high or not.
It was killing me inside that this had reached this point, but the point of no return was reached
when he shot at me the first time.
There was no turning back, no matter how badly either one of us wanted to.
“I can at least take some comfort in the fact that before it was all said and done that I was able to take one thing from you, something that was important to you for a change. That makes doing this even sweeter.”
Omar’s eyes widened when he finally stopped scanning the room around us, staring directly at me, his body language reflecting the conflict inside of him.
“Put the gun down, Omar! It doesn’t have to end this way!” I yelled at him, placing my left hand under my right, trying to hold my gun steady, not sure what would happen next. The pain was intense, but I gritted my teeth through it.
I didn’t want to shoot him, but it was either going to be me or him, and it wasn’t going to be me.
“Yes it does, D.” Omar coldly stated, the gun shaking in his grip. “It’s over. I’m done.”
The gun went off before I had a chance to react.
~Cori~
Seeing Toni’s number on my cell phone’s caller ID was an odd thing.
Especially at this time of night.
Something’s not right, I could feel it.
“Hello?” I answered the phone while half asleep.
“Cori, I’m sorry to call you at such a late hour, but something’s happened and Derrick’s been hurt.” Toni didn’t waste time. “I don’t know all the details, but one of the officers found his phone and they found my number in the ICE files.”
“Oh my God, no!” I screamed at the phone, not realizing that my concern for Derrick’s sa
fety was more than I originally let on. “Where are you now, are you on the way there now?”
“Yeah, I’m heading to Omar’s condo now,” Toni was speaking extremely fast, which let me know that it was really serious. “I can come get you on the way. You’re in Dunwoody, right?”
“Yeah, outside of Perimeter Mall,” I told Toni, my hands shaking more by the minute. “I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks for picking me up, Toni.”
“No problem, I needed the company. My nerves are shot.” Toni replied, pulling off before I could shut the door completely. “The officer sounded so damn cryptic, I didn’t know what to think.”
God I hope he’s okay, I kept saying to myself over and over. He’s got to be okay.
“Let’s just hope that the officer was just doing his job and not telling you anything over the phone. We’ll know more once we get there.” I tried to calm her.
We sped across I-285, heading toward Marietta, and I couldn’t help but wonder where we were going.
“You said we were heading to Omar’s condo?” I asked her, trying to get my bearings. “Who is Omar? I know Brian already.”
Toni breathed in deeply and exhaled as if she were preparing for a very long story in a very short amount of time. “Omar is the bad seed of the three of them, Cori,” she started, alternating her glances between me and the road. “He’s not an evil person, but he has done some really fucked up things in our collective past.”
I sat in the passenger seat, trying to get the gist of what she was driving at. I got the feeling that Omar was someone that I didn’t want to be in contact with.
“Omar is a weed head, not that there’s anything wrong with that because I can unwind a little from time to time with Mary Jane.” Toni kept going as we got off at the Vinings exit. “But he’s always tried to compete with Derrick, as if he always had to be better than him at everything.”
I read Toni’s body language, and I could feel that she was holding something back. “So, why haven’t I met him? If they are that tight, wouldn’t he have been at the party at your house?”
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